The things we go through to some day have babies...
My recent experience may compare with the gyno visit for a woman with its awkward moments. I had chemo to treat testicular cancer, which may have damaged my fertility. Since then, the "rent" at the sperm bank has increased and my parents (they were paying that rent) asked me to get counted to verify the need for sperm banking.
For those of you who are wondering, yes: they do have porn at the "lab". When I banked my sperm the first time, the lab had the most amazing spectrum of porn I've ever seen: from light Victoria's Secret...all the way to pervish stuff like Martian Spacemen in Bunny Suits Invade the Sorority House.
My experience at the NYC lab was rough:
- Some guy came out of the masturbation room before me, and no
one sanitized or anything. I hope
he had good aim!
- The room was tiny with just a loveseat and TV/VCR, and there
were only "a few videos in the drawer" according to the doctor who set me up,
along with a random Penthouse on the table by the loveseat.
I tried to pick the side of the loveseat that the previous guy may not have sat on. I am a much wiser man since my last lab visit. This time, I exercised my BYOP (bring your own porn) rights-I brought my laptop. I haven't been able to use personal memory or movies for inspiration. I'm completely digital.
Midway through my session, I heard an alarm. What was this? Had I stayed in the room too long? Was I committing some kind of violation? Did I win a prize?
Then, I got my answer: all the lights in the room went out. I was sitting on the loveseat, pants down, with my laptop providing the only light. I guess the room had "energy efficient" timed lighting. I fumbled for a switch, got re-situated and finished up my duty in a hurry to beat the light timer.
After I had gotten everything into the sample cup, I worried that it didn't look right. Was there too much? Too little? On my way out the door, I had a nervous feeling I was going to get "called back" because I didn't provide a good sample. But I made it out, and the next hurdle-the Urologist in a few days-would prove to be another adventure.
Things got off to a rocky start with the Urologist when he asked: "do you mind if a Resident joins us?" I saw no problem with this and agreed to it.
Some med school kid turned the corner and introduced himself, and I was immediately out numbered. Now, I thought the doctor was simply going to go over my test results and tell me a sperm number, then discuss whether I had to bank or destroy my sperm, but I was sadly mistaken.
"Why don't you pull your trousers down and get up on the table."
So, there was a testicle exam, which I'm used to, no worries there. But then the doctor decided to test something else. He had me stand up and grabbed some tube in my groin near my penis. He asked me to contort my body in different positions to see how that tube reacted.
Then, to my horror, he called the Resident over.
"OK, hold this," he said to the resident referring to the tube in my groin.
After grabbing the wrong tube a few times, the Resident
figured it out. Then the two of
them passed the groin tube back and forth while telling me to contort my body,
and talking to one another:
"Feel that?"
"Feel that?"
"There you go."
They then decided to use a little sonogram thing to compare with their "manual" test on my groin tube. The doctor went over my groin area like an old man looking for coins on the beach with a metal detector. I was a bit worried by the sonogram's beeps and feedback reminiscent of a Hendrix album, but I guess the doc/resident got a good reault. I was allowed to get dressed.
I was sad because my first experience with two people passing my genitals back and forth was with two men and not two adorable super hot girls. How long before I can say: "a woman was the last person to touch my genitals, and not two men"?
At long last, the doctor went over my fertility results.
Excellent news: lots and lots of sperm!
Is this experience as bad/awkward as the gyno?
...so, in the next post, I'll go over some thoughts and what I learned from my experience.
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